Ghettoville (LP)

Actress

Amoeba Review

01/27/2014

The latest album by Actress aka Darren J. Cunningham is a spiritual successor to his much-loved debut, Hazyville, though like any Actress album, it breaks with tradition from its predecessors. Opener “Forgiven” sounds like daydreaming on the Metro, as a muffled beat clunks along with ephemeral noise together making up a sort of industrial orchestra. “Street Corp” continues in the same murky mood, with a glitched out beat and ghostly synth floating hauntingly throughout. The album becomes a little more embracing with “Corner,” whose Commodore 64-style hip-hop beat invites listeners in while Cunningham unleashes digitized samples and squelches overhead. Ghettoville’s dark corners are endlessly fascinating, in the way “Contagious’” mutated voices lead into “Birdcage’s” roughed up worldbeat synths and to “Our’s” chilled-out respite. In a world where Brostep rules, it’s nice to have an artist as idiosyncratic as Actress continuing to challenge listener expectations for dubstep with the brilliant Ghettoville.